


The River That Flows Both Ways

by Poetry



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Diplomacy, Folklore, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Native American Character(s), New York, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 05:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4693742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I tried not to sound too important about my new title of Genuine Riverine Diplomacy Expert when I said, “Hello, DC Grant speaking.”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>The Folly gets a phone call asking for advice on a delicate political situation in the American demimonde. Nightingale seems to think Peter can help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The River That Flows Both Ways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



> I am so happy to get a worldbuilding prompt from you, DesertScribe, because I've wanted to write about rivers in America for ages but never found a good excuse. I hope you like it. Many thanks to @solacekames on tumblr for beta-reading.

Nightingale was with me in the library, explaining for the fourth or fifth time the proper use of the ablative case in Latin, when we heard the Folly’s landline ring.  
  
There wasn’t a case on, so we weren’t expecting a call. “One moment,” Nightingale said, and instead of staring at the page in my textbook about ablative declensions, I stood at the threshold of the library and eavesdropped on the call. I had to strain to hear it.  
  
“Good morning, this is Nightingale.” Proper telephone etiquette, as always.  
  
“Professor Beaumont…” Nightingale said, drawing it out thoughtfully. “I’ve heard of him before. He did some very good translation work, didn’t he?”  
  
“My God, I had no idea Prentiss was still alive, much less moved to America.”  
  
“Interesting. Yes, I do have some experience on the subject,” Nightingale said. I could practically hear him raising his eyebrows.  
  
“My starl – well.” An awkward pause. I contemplated taking Toby for a walk so I would never have to face up to the fact that someone just called me Nightingale’s starling in front of him. Over the phone from him. Whatever.  
  
But that fantasy popped like a balloon when Nightingale went on to say, “It was mostly Constable Grant’s doing. Perhaps you had better speak to him. One moment. I’ll go fetch him. Peter!”  
  
I came out of the library, walked toward Nightingale, and pretended I hadn’t been listening. “What is it, boss?”  
  
Nightingale held the cradle of the old-fashioned phone, covering the receiver with his hand. “There’s a practitioner from America on the phone who needs your expertise.”  
  
“My expertise on what?” I asked.  
  
“Riverine diplomacy. Mr. Goodleaf is trying to resolve a conflict between rivers in New York.” He passed me the phone, smiling a little. Nightingale didn’t smile very often, which probably meant he expected me to do something impressive.  
  
I tried not to sound too important about my new title of Genuine Riverine Diplomacy Expert when I said, “Hello, DC Grant speaking.”  
  
“Hey there, Constable. My name’s Joe Goodleaf. I gotta admit, I’m kind of relieved you sound like a normal person. Your master sounds like Helen Mirren playing the queen! I’ve never heard anyone talk like that in real life.”  
  
“You get used to it,” I said, keenly aware that Nightingale was still standing next to me. I also had to suppress a completely fruitless urge to look up Goodleaf on HOLMES. “So, Mr. Goodleaf, tell me about your rivers.”  
  
“Bear with me. This might get a little confusing. Just stop me if you have questions. You see, the Hudson River may seem like one river, but really it’s more like two.”  
  
“I think I catch your meaning,” I said, thinking of Mama and Papa Thames.  
  
“The lower Hudson is a really a fjord carved out by a glacier. The biggest fjord in the world, actually. The current flows not just from the mountains to the sea, but from the Atlantic back up the Hudson. That’s why the Rivers are called Muhhea _kantuck_ and Muhhea _kunnuk_ ,” Goodleaf said, carefully enunciating the different endings. “They mean ‘the river that flows both ways’ in Lenape and Mohican. But anyway. Point is. Mother Muhheakantuck – she’s the fjord part – and Sachem Muhheakunnuk – he’s the upstate part – used to get along just fine. She was in charge of calling meetings and distributing power among the rivers and their clans, and he was in charge of diplomacy toward other watersheds. It was all good.”  
  
“All right,” I said, still trying to process the _upstate_ part, which meant this whole fjord-mountain business was going on in just _one state_ – where did New York get off being so big? “So then what happened?”  
  
“Well, Mother Muhheakantuck and Sachem Muhheakunnuk have some cultural differences. I mean, they always did – Mother’s Lenape and Sachem’s Mohawk, like me. Those tribes never got along, but they managed somehow. But Mother Muhheakantuck’s touched by the city. I’ve looked through the records at UPenn, and it’s been going on for centuries. She picks up immigrant ideas. She invites ghosts from Little Italy and Indian fae from Jackson Heights into her court and passes around the hashish. But _now_ she says Sachem Muhheakunnuk hasn’t modernized enough.”  
  
I remembered Mama Thames’ complaints about Papa Thames. “Sounds familiar. What’s she done, then?”  
  
“Like I said, Constable. She’s in charge of distributing power along the river. I visited Sachem Muhheakunnuk upstate last week, and it was the first time since I’ve known him that I didn’t want to suck his cock as soon as I came within ten feet of him. His glamour’s fading, and he’s _pissed_.”  
  
I pictured a very drunk river before I remembered that for Americans that word means something different. “That definitely sounds like a problem. Has anything like it happened before?”  
  
“Maybe, but the Virtuous Men never paid much attention to river politics, so if it did, they didn’t write it down.”  
  
“Sounds just like our lot back in the day, then,” I said. “Well, you can’t use the same strategy I did, because I negotiated our peace with cross-fostering, an old practice medieval lords in Europe did to strengthen alliances. That wouldn’t be relevant to your rivers. But the basic point is that I went for a well-established diplomatic tactic with a long history in my area, one that put both rivers on an equal footing. Have your tribes got anything like that?”  
  
“Hmm. Well, there’s the Great Council of the Iroquois. That’s why he’s called Sachem Muhheakunnuk. Sachems are representatives to the Great Council. Problem is, I don’t know if the Lenape had a similar custom – all the ones who survived are in Oklahoma now. And even if they did, it wouldn’t really put them on an equal footing. Sachems are appointed by the clan mothers, so Mother Muhheakantuck would still call the shots.”  
  
That was definitely different from the way we did things in England. “Do any of the rivers’ children get on with each other? There’s always a good old-fashioned marriage alliance to seal the deal.”  
  
“Mohawks and Lenape both send husbands to go live with the wife’s clan. So whoever’s son got married would still end up on the losing end of the deal.”  
  
I was getting the feeling I really didn’t know enough about Native American tribes to help the guy out, but Nightingale was still standing there watching and I was supposed to be the Genuine Riverine Diplomacy Expert, so I let my mind keep churning on until it spat out a half-useful answer. “Who says there has to be a husband involved? Same-sex marriage is legal in New York, right?”  
  
Nightingale quirked an eyebrow at that. I quirked my eyebrow back. I’m not as good at it as he is, but it’s the principle of the thing.  
  
“Huh,” said Goodleaf, drawing it out into at least two syllables. “Well, if neither of them had to leave their clans… no break in inheritance… I’m pretty sure Sachenda’ga wouldn’t mind. Huh. That definitely gives me something to think about. Thanks for that.”  
  
That was probably a signal that the conversation was over, but there was still so much I wanted to ask him. If there was organized wizardry in America, we needed to know about it – if nothing else, as backup in case the Faceless Man pulled something too big for Nightingale and me to handle. “Glad to serve the wizarding public,” I said. Peter Grant, Riverine Diplomacy Expert, saving the Hudson River watershed through the power of gay marriage.  
  
“Is that what you guys do at the Folly? Serving the wizarding public since seventeen-fifty-something?”  
  
“Not historically,” I said, “but we’ve shifted our operational parameters. Listen, Mr. Goodleaf, do you work for anyone? Who’s your master? Do you have contact information we can use in case we need your help?”  
  
“Hey, I work for a private school. I just moonlight as a magician on my off hours. We don’t have anything government-affiliated here like you guys and the London police. The Virtuous Men aren’t around anymore, and my master died four years ago. But I keep in touch with other practitioners who were trained by Virtuous Men, and there’s a whole cabal of Chinese practitioners out in Flushing. Most of them won’t give me the time of day, but a couple of the apprentices are friendly.”  
  
Goodleaf did all of this unpaid? I needed to contact Agent Reynolds about getting the man a government salary. “I’d still like to get your contact information. The Folly’s only got me and Nightingale. We can use all the help we can get.”  
  
I gestured at Nightingale for a pen and paper, and he quickly fetched them for me. I wrote down Goodleaf’s phone number and email address. I almost asked him for his Twitter handle, in case Molly wanted to tweet at him, but decided that the American magical community might not be ready for her.  
  
We said our goodbyes, though if I’d had my druthers I would have asked him at least fifteen more questions about magic in America. I passed the phone to Nightingale so he could make some polite noises, too. He’s good at that.  
  
When Nightingale hung up, he said, “Mr. Goodleaf got our number from a man who broke his staff in 1949, and now resides in Florida. I had no idea the chain of magical gossip extended so far.”  
  
“Never underestimate the gossiping power of bored old men,” I said, thinking of my dad and his Irregulars. “Did you know Goodleaf’s master? You said the Virtuous Men fought in World War II.”  
  
“Professor Beaumont never fought in the war. I did know some of his contemporaries. They were a very independent lot. They believed they upheld the principles America’s Founding Fathers intended for their country – particularly of their founder, Benjamin Franklin. They chose to fight in the war well before America officially joined the conflict, because they felt it was their duty.”  
  
As I opened my mouth to ask another question, Nightingale turned back toward the library. “Come, Peter. I want you to tell me how to render in Latin the phrase ‘The gossip moved from England to Florida.’”  
  
“There’s an ablative case in there, isn’t there?” I said, following him.  
  
“Is there?” said Nightingale, mildly.  
  
“Err,” I said. “ _Ex Angliā ad Floridam_ … how do you say ‘gossip’ in Latin? Are there formae with gossip in them?”  
  
“No,” said Nightingale. “But there are texts in the library that mention which information is based in fact and which in _rumor_.” He pronounced it like _rue-more_ , and it clicked. That was the Latin word for gossip. Obvious once he pointed it out.  
  
As I followed Nightingale back to the library and more Latin, I thought about what we could learn from the Americans – and what they might learn from us. Rumors of what we’d done here in Britain had already spread, and after all, gossip is a long chain that extends in both directions. I could only hope the new Folly’s reputation would be better than the old.


End file.
